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The time has come to send our golf ball on our chosen path towards the hole. As you reach this point, you have done a great job of

Author Paul Hobart

completing your key tasks. You’ve gathered all the information you need. You have a very clear picture in mind of how you are going to make this putt. You have a good feel for the speed and the corresponding line. You can clearly see what part of the cup is going to accept the ball. You know that you’ve done your best aligning the ball, and your putter.

You have officially earned the right to make this putt!

My next point is a challenging one. I’m going to tell you what to think and feel as you stand over your putt. How can I do that? I really can’t, but I am going to try to guide you towards the proper mindset and emotional state.

As I stated above, you have earned the right to make this putt. You deserve it. You have followed all of the steps, and done your homework. All of this preparation is designed to put you in the ideal mental and emotional state.

There are just 2 more things that I will ask you to do:

1). Have 100% trust in the alignment of the ball and putter

2). Make absolutely sure that your final thought is about creating the speed that you have chosen for this particular putt

The Putting Banana

Let’s look at these two final concepts in a little more detail. Having complete trust in the alignment of the ball and putter is one of the key components of the Banana Putting System. One of the main reasons that golfers miss putts is a lack of trust in their alignment. By carefully going through all of the steps in this book, you have gathered all of the information you need. You have a picture in mind of your ideal putt. You now need to place 100% trust in the work you have done.

Putts are pulled and pushed and hit with too much and too little speed because the golfer doesn’t believe that he or she is properly aligned. My good friend Dr. Craig Farnsworth once told me:

You are much better off to be completely committed to the wrong line,
than to be uncommitted to the right line.

I believe that golfers need to have achievable objectives when they play. An achievable objective is something that you can control and something you can measure or track. A key objective in putting is total and complete commitment to the line and speed you have chosen.

Total and complete commitment
Total and complete commitment
Total and complete commitment

Sorry for the repetition, but this is really important if you are going to make your golf ball go in the hole. Please remember, you’ve worked very hard to arrive at this point completely prepared. All of the work, all of the steps are carefully scripted so that you can stand over your ball with this level of commitment.
Standing in the way of this state of total and complete commitment are your thoughts and feelings as you stand over the ball. Nearly all of our work has been done from the “level eye” position that we talked about earlier. Things make sense and “look right” when we look and see with our head in an upright and level position.

Your address of the ball is getting ready to change all that. As you position yourself over the ball, you are going to tilt your body and head towards the ball. As you turn your head to look down the start line, you rotate your face and eyes toward the target. Your eyes are no longer level.

Suddenly the world looks different!

What happened to that nice vision you had of a perfect putt?

Have you completely lost your feel for the putt?

Where’s your line?

This doesn’t look right?!

Do you need to make an adjustment to fit your new perspective?

This is what goes through the mind of nearly every golfer. This is what we’re going to remove from your game. This is why you miss more than you make.

How a golfers sees the ball from sideways

Are you turning the page or your computer to see this photo more clearly? I would do the same thing. Everything is suddenly turned 90 degrees from my “level eyes” position and its very confusing. Can you imagine driving your car with your head turned 90 degrees to the side. No way! You wouldn’t make it out of the driveway before you crashed into something.

This is why you get very confused and unsure standing over the ball. You have suddenly put yourself in a position where it’s very hard to believe that you are properly aligned.

That’s why you did all the steps, and very carefully chose your start line. That’s why you very carefully lined up your golf ball. That’s why you have aligned your putter exactly with your golf ball alignment. I have asked you to do all of these things for an important reason.

I’m going to ask you to completely ignore all of these crazy thoughts and feelings you have as you stand over the ball. That’s right…completely ignore them.

Let me ask you a quick question. Do you have anyone in your personal or business life that you ask for advice? Most people have a trusted friend or advisor that they will ask for advice or input.

What would you do if this person consistently gave you the wrong answer? You would probably stop listening after a while, wouldn’t you? I think so.

In this case, the person giving you bad advice is YOU.

Your thoughts and feelings are the source of this uncertainty as you stand over the ball. These thoughts and feelings often conflict with the earlier work that you have done, and because of that, leave you confused. You suddenly change your view of the putt, and adjust your stance, your putter alignment, or you manipulate the putter during the stroke.

You do all of this because this final perspective standing over the ball is different.

*******************

This is an excerpt from the book: “Banana Putting” by PGA instructor Paul Hobart.

You are already a great putter. You simply haven’t put yourself in a position to succeed. I will show you how to control the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of putting so that your excellence will shine through.

You can putt as well as Tiger Woods. Unbelievable? It sure sounds unbelievable, but I have a good reason for stating this.

Master these concepts and you can forget about the “Y” word.

Yes, the yips can become a thing of the past. I’ll explain them, why you get them, and how to be so ready to hit your putt that the word never even comes up.

Trying to figure out the perfect line of your putt is a waste of your time. You are going to learn to look at your putts differently than you have in the past.

You do not need to work on the mechanics of your stroke for these concepts to work. A perfect putting stroke is no guarantee of success on the greens. Sure, it helps, but I can turn you into a golfer that makes putts regardless of your putting stroke. You may find that just by reading this book and using these concepts that your stroke improves.

I can show you how to putt well with a range ball and a putter you borrowed from the local Putt-Putt course. You do not need the latest and greatest equipment to be a great putter. It doesn’t hurt…but there are no guarantees when you walk out of that Pro Shop with your new purchase. My concepts will work with any equipment.

You can putt better tomorrow. I have no idea how long it will take you to read through this book…in fact I just began writing, so I don’t even know how long it’s going to be! Let me say this…when you finish reading this book, and have digested the concepts, you will have become a better putter. Sounds crazy? Give it a chance.

The principle in this book require no practice. Doesn’t that sound to good to be true? My experience in working with lots of golfers is that these concepts will immediately change the way you look at, think about, and feel about putting. I do not mean to downplay the role of practice. Great players practice, and I believe that practice helps. For the purpose of this statement though…practice is not necessary for you to improve using my concepts.

Practice will enhance the concepts in this book, and I will suggest some drills and techniques if you want to take your putting to another level.

Start with a better alignment…by Scott Myers

Getting the correct alignment for the putt is crucial to starting the ball on-line. Not only does this mean having the correct alignment of the putter, but also the correct alignment of the body.

When the body is correctly aligned to your target, the putting stroke will remain square to the target through the entire motion. This will eliminate any need for the body to try and compensate for poor alignment during the stroke.

Alignment is the act of getting not only the putter aimed correctly at your target, but also having the appropriate areas of your body aligned correctly with your target line.

While your putter will point directly down your target line, the line formed by your shoulders, knees, and even feet will not be pointing at your target – they will be parallel to it.

Imagine standing over a set of railroad tracks. The track farthest away from you is the line down which you will aim your putter. The track closes to you is the one with which you align your body.

Aligning your body correctly to your target line is actually quite easy and can be accomplished in only three steps.

Step one:
• Choose the line on which you want your ball to start
• Walk up to the ball, place your putter behind it, and with your eyes directly over the ball, align your putter to the target using the alignment line on your putter to point it straight down the target-line you have just chosen

Step two:
• Align the toes of each of your feet on the line you have just aligned your putter to. (If you drew a line from the tip of each shoe, it would run parallel to your target-line line. )

Step three:

• Square your shoulders to your target-line. This is the most important part of aligning your body.

Alignment is crucial to putting better

If you decide to only follow one of these steps, make sure this is the one. The path of your putting-stroke is determined by the alignment of your shoulders. Square shoulders=square putting stroke. Open shoulders=out-to-in putting stroke. Closed shoulders=in-to-out stroke. Making sure your shoulders are square to your target line before you take your putter back will guarantee a square putting stroke every time.

• If you need help figuring out if your shoulders are indeed square to your target-line, hold a golf shaft across each shoulder with both hands and turn your shoulders so that the shaft is now parallel to your target line.

Too many golfers just go up to their putt completely mindless, having never worked on any of the foundations that set you up for a consistent putting stroke that sends the ball on the chosen line of travel.

There are a number of things you must do if you want to be a putter who doesn’t fold under the pressure of a must-make putt. The problem with far too many every-day golfers is that they have made some great putts in the past and so they carry around with them the idea that they are good while using a poor mechanical motion.

You can’t teach a player how to putt, but you can put across some of the basic ideas to help him get the ball rolling toward the hole.
Where do most of the tournament players spend the most time? On the putting green, of course. You can’t score without sinking the ball in the hole.

When one of the boys wants to give one of his fellow pros the needle, all he has to say is, “You’re the greatest putter in the world.” More nasty things have been said about putting than about Russia. From the high- handicapper to the scratch player to the touring pro, wails are heard about their putting.

Arnold Palmer putting stroke

I’m no exception. It’s normal to complain after you hit two perfect shots that travel 450 yards straight to within six feet of the cup and then miss the birdie putt. After all, the surface of the green is specially prepared to make the ball roll true. There’s no rough, no sand, and nothing to worry about except the cup. It sounds easy but, of course, isn’t. Other- wise, the men who build golf courses wouldn’t allow two shots to get to the green and then two more to get in the hole for a par. Of course, to score you have to one-putt, not only when you hit the greens but when you miss them, too.

When I won the Masters in 1960, I was putting good—no doubt about that. But you still have to play a lot of other good shots to win a golf tournament, especially such a prize as the Masters.

On the first hole of the last round, I hooked my tee shot away to the left of the fairway over some trees almost to another fairway. But I hit a two-iron onto the putting surface 20 feet from the pin and holed the putt for a birdie. What had looked like a sure bogey from the first tee became a birdie.

The second hole is a par five that can be reached in two. I landed in a sand trap on my second shot, but with an explosion shot got within two
feet of the pin. I figured that I was off to a flying start with my second birdie. I missed the two-footer.
Don’t ask me what causes inconsistency in putting, because I can’t tell you, except that I feel that erratic putting comes from not doing the same thing all the time.

Pick the style which suits you best and stick to it. There are a couple of things, though, that have to be done no matter which way you putt. The blade must be square behind the ball at impact. In other words, the center of the ball and the blade of the putter are at right angles. And your head must not move when you putt. Any movement of the head not only will take your stroke off the intended line of flight, but also will prevent you from stroking the ball the same way all the time. You must see the blade of the putter contact the ball or you haven’t done the job right.

At one time or another I have putted every possible way, I think, except standing on my head. Some of them worked, some of the time. Some never worked. When I first went on the tour, I traveled by car. They joked about the trunk of my car, but it was no gag. When I opened it I had to be alert because there were 25 putters jammed in the back and they might come tumbling out.

Through trial and error, I came upon one way to putt that seems to
remain the same. I use the reverse overlapping grip, which sounds technical
but actually is the Vardon grip in reverse.

The follow through

I have all five fingers of the
right hand on the club. I place the bottom three fingers of the left hand
on the club, insert the index finger between the groove formed by the last
two fingers of the right hand, and put my left thumb on the shaft so that
the fingernail is touching it. This immobilizes the left hand and makes
it just a guide in the stroke.

Although both hands move together, the right
hand does the putting. Many things can go wrong with a putt. You can read the greens wrong,
find a roll that isn’t there, or miss one that is. You can play a putt to break
left and it goes straight, or vice versa. And, most of all, on putts of 15 feet
or more, there is the problem of how hard to hit the ball.

I like to putt hard enough so that the ball gets past the hole. That way
it has a double chance of going in, once on the first putt and again on the
putt coming back. There is no worse feeling than leaving a putt short, dead
on line for the hole. I think I’d rather get hit by Rocky Marciano.